One
by wahinetoa
Summary: Post Two for the Road episode. SanaJateJana. Ana discovers her voice, just when she has none. Complete.


One

by wahinetoa

Symmary: Sana/Jate/Jana. Post:Two for the Road. Sana joy and grief in the same breath. The last of which belongs to Ana, who discovers her voice, only when she has none.

Ana POV in "Two for the Road."

Disclaimer: Lost is owned and ruled by ABC network. One Love by U2 and sung with Mary.J.

AN: Quickly written in response to the heartbreak of TftR. Unedited. Not seen in NZ, but am taking great liberty with screen captures, and a special Sana video by lolohannah. The name Luanna is copyright of Scouse as the Sana baby. Thanks ladies.

* * *

_**Is it getting better **_

_**Or do you feel the same **_

Through a cacophony of rushed and blinding activity, of curses, angry voices and recriminations - a wash of neon light slips across the concrete floor, silently, etching out dust motes that dance in the blades of light, that come to rest, and eventually try to warm, the hollow depth of my skin. In a body that doesn't fit me anymore, or ever, that it truly did. I am yet again, a ghost in their world, as they are in mine.

But I see them, all the same, behind closed eyes that strangely remain open. The dead do see...

_**Will it make it easier on you now **_

_**You got someone to blame **_

_**You say... **_

.. and try to speak.

Michael. His voice runs in an urgent but low tone, as if the words he says are vipers in this closed space. May well turn on him too, should he slip. Should his gaze rest on me, or Libby.. Dammit. Libby. Please Jack, ask yourself why he's not looking you in the eye, when you demand what happened. Why he's nervous, more than a little jittery as you find a pulse, small and thready at Libbys throat. A small enough hope that she'll live.

"That'a girl! Don't go and do anything stupid - like following me."

If only I had followed your advice. Me and my steel toed boots.

Jacks voice cracks open.

Angrily, because Locke kept a secret of Gale trying to kill me. Truth is, I kept it from you too. Part pride, I guess - part need to take revenge, myself. Not to have anyone looking over my shoulder, acting as my conscious. My salvation.

Thought I'd taste defiance and a little brash reality, like old times. Yeh, that worked out well.

Stupid secrets.. this whole camp is littered with them.

When the hell are we gonna sit down and talk. Stop this kind of mess happenin' again?

* * *

Lockes reviewing the state of things with a hunters eye. That's right. Figure it out, Locke. C'mon, man. 

Henry Gale. He's escaped. Killed me, shot Libby and Mike. Escaped. Did he take anything, say anything? Michael says no, don't think so. To which Locke is silent. Damn, there's something going on there. What is it?

"Are you in on this too, homie? You and Fenry seem to be awfully chummy. Did this creep have something on you? Over you? Did he promise you something as great, as what Michael vowed to get back? Is there anything in this whole world, that means as much as a child?"

Your silence, has meaning.

Don't blame Michael. Not really. How could I? He'd do anything to make sure his kid was safe - was with him. Not so long ago, I made the same bargain with the devil.

Mike already knows the cost, can see it splashed against the walls, the floor and his skin. "Don't follow the path I did, Michael. It's too lonely, and dark, and brutal. Look around, see these people who love you. Find redemption, man. Sooner than I did."

I'm not foolish enough to think I'm anything more than a pawn in this whole game. But damned if I don't wish to be more to at least someone. Sometime. Before it's all taken away.

That someone is clamping their hand on his shoulder.. telling Michael ,it's gonna be okay. Somehow.

They'll make it right.

Doesn't sound as if they believe it either. But that's to be expected.

The drawl gives away the con.

* * *

_**One love **_

_**One life **_

_**When it's one need **_

_**In the night **_

Cowboy. Redneck.

As of two hours before - a lot more besides.

Sawyer.

"Does your skin still hold the memory of my touch? The press of my hands, the unexpected sting of my nails? That these now still, cooling hands were more than able, aggressive hands, and full lips and sharp, sharp teeth, that had mapped your body, as intimately or as audaciously as you did mine?"

If there's a deity on this crooked piece of earth; and she's female - even male; there's a good chance that she's pissed at me right now. And if death hadn't stolen the chance too, my lips would be twitching.

Jack shout orders, mutters curses and pleas for you to move, get the meds, help Michael..

But you're too caught in that spot - the one that lurches between head and heart - wanting, hesitating to come to me.

Like yours, my gaze seems unable to defy you. Truth is; Sawyer - when it did, it had the potential to alter the landscape.

_Caught in recent memory --_

_The sound of water, over river smooth rock; the sun full upon us, lithe limbs tangled with gasps and moans, caught impossibly with the other. Amongst heart-shaped waterlillies, and vines, we struck our battle ground._

_Then went about merrily demolishing it._

_Like a moth to a flame, our bodies came together. I was no match to you in strength, on the day, given. But didn't you just love it, that I fought all the same? The weight of your body, hard and unapologetically masculine, crushing into mine. Hand at my hip, warm and unforgiving in its clasp - pressing down, trying to restrain the spirit that bucked and thrashed against you. Against you winning, again. Confessions? We both enjoyed that._

_Not that I am any fragile Southern flower, swooning. I gave as good as I got. Didn't hear you complaining - for once._

_I can't say if it was part of the plan; per-se, to get the gun, but it was fortuitous that the immediate chemistry that had built up on the otherside of the island, rekindled at that moment. Worked to my favor._

_The rage had begun with Gale - seeking revenge for what he had done. What he nearly had done. Anger and failure, spurred the desperate actions, but not the act._

_That was all you._

_The gasps, the moans.. your hunger marbling my skin like scripture to the fallen. A wildness and abandon, I had never known taking us both over. No quarter asked, no quarter given. Every pore of my body pulsed, overwhelmed me, as though your touch, your kiss, awakened new cells._

_This dimpled blond lothario was not a stranger to a womans body, or thereafter, mine. And how grateful was I, for that!_

_**One love **_

_**We get to share it **_

Yet, in the midst of fighting for dominance, in the pull of passion that threatened us the moment we met, clashed, as our mouths crushed against the other. There; with your face cradled in my hands, we still sought that longing affirmation of tenderness.

That loneliness, we recognized in each other, despite the best efforts at snarling and convincing others, us; most of all, we weren't. That it didn't just hurt. Hurts like a bitch. On this; crudhole island, it's gotta be more than just surviving. Or scrwing.

What we had, what we could have had. Ain't fool enough to figure its exactly true love either.

But if I had the time, Cowboy, I would've liked to see, just how close we would've gotten to the real thing.

_**Leaves you baby if you **_

_**Don't care for it **_

But outcasts, like us, don't trust enough to fall in love and stay that way. And when we do manage to find the real thing, or the possibility of it, perhaps the ones we've been lookin' all our damn lives for - we screw it up.

We fight, bite, scratch and try to viciously out maneuver those who come to love us.

"Just try and lean on your back, blondie, without hissing in pain or annoyance, to figure that out."

Absurd as it sounds, it's all very amusing. If I wasn't dead already, those likewise scratches you made along the indenture of my spine, or the bite mark on my hip, would certainly resurrect me too.

Dammit to hell. I shoul'a demanded a gun from you sooner. Would've saved us a lotta time pining for the wrong ones.

But then, what's one more?

Danny replaces you, momentarily, shifting me further back..

* * *

_**Did I disappoint you **_

_**Or leave a bad taste in your mouth **_

_**You act like you never had love **_

_**And you want me to go without **_

_**Well it's... **_

For once, my first love takes precedence over my last.

Danny. Worked with his father doing mainly grunt work, in construction. Kept himself to himself, going to nightschool, trying for better. Hell, weren't we all? That's what drew me to him - another kindred soul. Twisted, dark and blaming the world.

In the end, he lay the blame where it belonged. With me. Perhaps no more than I had - do. I guess we were already falling apart before that night. Not that I remembered anything before that night, other than I was supposed to be someone's mom.

LA, the city she loved and had to run from.

The anesthesia had nauseated her, when she woke that dreadful night in the hospital. Stark and white, smelling like disinfectant, but not quite enough to mask the sick, the blood and vomit.. and death.

Her mother is beside her, face drawn, too pale and too sad to be anything but the truth. The answer to the question she hasn't asked yet. Danny is beside her, unable to meet her eyes, and she finds she desperately needs him too, and he can't. Can't make it real. This is more than this one moment, not being able to meet her eyes, it comes from the year before, but she won't let herself be caught.

'Cause this moment ain't over, and the doctor is speaking.

"It was an internal rupture, there was nothing we could do.. I'm sorry, Miss Cortez - we couldn't save your baby."

Somewhere between being sick and not, she found the strength to speak the hard question - the question that made the loss real, and bitter, and last a whole damn lifetime after. She had clutched at the white coat, till her knuckles turned stung like a streetfighter, till her mother became frantic trying to pull her off him. She didn't know where Danny was - reaccuring theme.

She had licked her dried lips, and asked.The doctorlooked to her mother, frozen in battle, eyes full upon her daughter. Hesitated, then the doctor resigned, scanned her chart.

Told me. It had been a little girl.

If it had a chance to live. She would have been called Luanna.

* * *

A year didn't make things better. Dan was constantly gone, off somewhere, mourning his own way. For a time that was okay, because there was revenge to be had. In the meantime, he got sick of waiting to touch me again, without me flinching, or wishing that this body hadn't been so wounded to love again. So he found it instead somewhere else. 

With some one else named Sarah.

He left me, unable to keep holding us both up, from drowning.

And drown I did... right to the end of the bottle.

* * *

_**Too late **_

_**Tonight **_

_**To drag the past out into the light **_

Ironic how then, I met the four men who would change my life at a bar.

Jason; who was the reason I had to run. Young and stupid, and armed, just enough to start this house of cards falling.

Tom; who led me to Australia, both of us running from the truth. Ghosts, like Mcbeth craved to silence, and neither could we silence. For all our trying. If I had of known who he truly was... Yeh. No point in going over that.

And him. Unintentionally, Sawyer - outside the bar, ran smack into the passenger side of the car. Hick. Should've run him over, when I had the chance. But then what fun would have that been?

Tom eventually followed Sawyer in, trying to find solace.

"Did you find it, I wonder? Or did it take you some place, that I couldn't go, once I realized that I had to return home."

Of course, didn't reach that far, but I think I found mine, anyway, crashing on an island to do it.

Can't find the answer at the bottom of a glass, when stark reality and island cannibals are knawin' at your heels, baby.

That all came after Oceanic flight 815. The last drink I took at a bar, was where I met the sole reason for wanting redemption.

Jack.

* * *

_**We're one, but we're not the same **_

_**We get to **_

_**Carry each other **_

_**Carry each other **_

_**One... **_

"Jack." I could have loved you - most of all.

Even now, working hard to save Libbs, bloody hands and shirt, his gaze goes to Michael and then returns to me, and away. Back to Libbs. He blames himself, I can see it, and wish it wasn't there to witness.

If I had the power, you'd be absolved of it all. Because that's what you did for me.

"Although I gave you no reason too, you gave me a place to stay. Rest awhile, when the shadows threatened to overtake me. Did overtake me."

Jacks gaze snaps up, looks to her, and I know. I've always, in some way - known.

Kate. Been there, in your eyes. She was your reason to get up in the morning and fight. Your reason to live - to know that you're not alone. Not ever, when she's on your side. I see it in hers, too, though I never got a chance to tell you. Lots of stuff, I never told you. And though you don't hear it, I'll tell you now - because that's all I got left."

You're lifting a wounded Libby to the cot, at the side, wrapping bandages around her and your eyes are everywhere. Who to come to first. Michael needs you more. Go tend to the living. But hear me, just once..

"Kate, may have been your reason. But for the time we spent together - Thank you for being mine."

_**Have you come here for forgiveness **_

_**Have you come to raise the dead **_

_**Have you come here to play Jesus **_

_**To the lepers in your head **_

You. Doctor. Leader. Fighter. Friend.

This gentle acceptance had made me nervous. Couldn't trust what I didn't have to fight for, spilling my blood and bone, as payment first. Made me want things, that I had no right in asking. Only you - made me want to reach for them, with your words, and smile.

What I wouldn't give to have loved you.

Don't hold her at arms length too long. Distance has a way of multiplying, the way it is now.

_**Did I ask too much **_

_**More than a lot **_

_**You gave me nothing **_

_**Now it's all I got **_

Everything moving faster than I can keep up with. Vision blurs, stutters and becomes grey. But hell, I'll fight it anyway even as I'm loosing - lost - I'll fight to tell you this. To try and make you understand.. somehow.

_**We're one **_

_**But we're not the same **_

_**Well we **_

_**Hurt each other **_

_**Then we do it again **_

You're the one that told me about the island of second chances. Here where my sweet baby girl, Danny, Jason and Goodwin don't get to stab me in nightmares, opening old wounds.

Some; of their making. Some; of mine.

* * *

_**You say **_

_**Love is a temple **_

_**Love a higher law**_

_**You ask me to enter **_

_**But then you make me crawl **_

Shannon.

There ain't words enough, chica to say all the things I gotta say to you. Or to the man who loved you, so much more than both of us realized. I hope you heard them, hear them - like I am hearing the unspoken too.

If I'm lucky enough, I'll be seeing you, to tell them myself.

Sayid.

He is an honorable, respectful and ultimatelybrave man. If things had of worked out differently, perhaps, we would have been friends. But created the way it was - I hoped that we wouldn't be enemies.

And he gave me some sense of solace, that night tramping through the jungle to Henrys balloon. Though I had no right to it, to any of it, this man - this man, who I took from, showed me more forgiveness than I had ever expected, or given in my life.

Wounded enough, in spirit and heart to believe that he didn't have possession of them anymore. Their loss, connected so completely, to another. Nadia. Shannon. Himself.

Grief set about his shoulders, his endless coal dark eyes. I will always hold the guilt of adding to the burden he hefts up, each morning... without her.

"We are not dead, you and I, in our hearts, in our souls - when we have grieved so bitterly, so intensely for so very long."

You grieve because you have loved., Sayid. Are loved in return.

Are still capable of it.

We are created in this world to keep trying. Please.

* * *

_**And I can't be holding on **_

_**To what you got **_

_**When all you got is hurt **_

Goodwin. Did Henry mean what he said? Goodwin had seen the ability for redemption? Did his belief in me, when all I had felt was anger and pain and grief for the Others, for Them, for Nathan -

Why did HE have to be the one?

Besides Eko, the only one I could have trusted with the safety of our group, with the kids, with my wellbeing - it was him Goodwin.

"But you took the kids. You stole the promise I gave to Emma and her little brother. You were part of the horrors that came, with bare feet and 20 year old Army knives. I think of you often, when there's a sunset from where we've come. I wonder, if I had of asked you, would you have taken me to them?"

Not in the cards. I had Eko, Libby, Bernard and Cindy left to care for. I couldn't let you live to tell. Take their lives, like judge, jury and executioner.

So we were each fooled. I'm really not a 'good person' after all. We were both hoping differently.

The past fades, comes back - forward.

* * *

_**One love **_

_**One blood **_

_**One life **_

_**You got to do what you should **_

Too short a time for both of us, Cowboy. Our eyes on each other, narrowing on the hidden and the unsaid, holding, clasping each other as tight as we dared. Not alone, no more. Not afraid. Holding on. Trembling, as if we were on the brink of a discovery.

Praying that I could be the one - both of us knowing, somehow, it bloody should be.

"If not in this life - then in the next."

* * *

_**One life **_

_**With each other **_

_**Sisters **_

_**Brothers **_

When did I begin to think of these people as a part of me? Jack and Locke, worrying about Locke and Jack. Stubborn, like all men. Jack; a man of science. Locke; a man of faith. They're both needed, can't they see that?

Charlie; striving for redemption from the depths of an addiction.

Claire: wanting so much to keep the monster from her son.

Sun and Jin. Language doesn't stop them from connecting to the others, to tending and healing with their beautiful ways. I owe them, infinitely, for reaching for me too.

Bernard and Rose: One of mine, one of theirs. Together; they were always one of each other. I look to them, and envy, and hope. This was what love was meant to be.

Ache. God, how I ache.

Too reckless, too stubborn to see that Henry was nothing next to these people. To being a part of them.

They're not a bunch of sheep, like I had thought. At least they'll get rid of the wooly clothing when it comes to dealing with the Others, now this thing has happened.

"You'll need the brave, the strong, wise and loyal beside you. As I had, with me."

_**One life **_

_**But we're not the same **_

_**We get to **_

_**Carry each other **_

Eko.

My general, priest, confidant and trusted friend. The only one who stood between madness and death, and us tallies, long enough to give a damn. Not that having you near, would always ensure that, but for a time, in the service of others, it seemed bulletproof. Did I thank you for that? Did you know, how grateful I was to know you, to have you beside me, during those 48 days of hell?

How much I respected and admired you. Just how much I needed those soft words, that wrung my heart, when I finally let myself weep in front of someone? You didn't judge me, laugh at me or rebuke for such a weak moment. No.

You held me. You said that one day, we wouldn't have to fight. To kill. And I didn't believe you, but you remained stoic.

And I vowed then, I didn't want to be alone, leading these few remaining. Not without you beside me.

"You will see, Ana. One day, you'll find that there's hope enough inside, to find the reason to put down the gun. And live."

Darkness folds around me, and hope before it does, you somehow will find it, clasped , in the center ofmy open palm.

I will miss you, my friend.

* * *

_**We get to carry each other**_

Jack and Sawyer fill my heart to breaking. They each make their way, shakily to me, see already in their eyes, glaring at the other, what right he has to be there.

I fear both their answers. Helplessly their images bleed out to pitch black, and the first time I taste fear in the back of my throat.

So much to say.. too late to say it. So this'll be a prayer.

"Defy those that would rather you die out. Rather you give up. That's their game, don't play it. Bring back Walt, the kids, because they're, for all the world, worth fighting for. But when the time comes, put down the weapons, the grudges, the hurts and recriminations - and live. Live, because you can."

_

* * *

**We get to carry each other..** _

Perhaps this is a parting gift, but I feel as if I am being lifted. Weightless into eternity. From the floor, into strong male arms. Is it Eko? Jack? Sawyer?

It doesn't matter. Not really. Because their arms are strong, and steady and there's a warmth in their hold that even if I cannot feel it - it moves me to speak.

Hope, that as I leave this world, of all the things I wanted and needed to say there is just one thing that matters.

Mine to those that care for me now. I came here alone, I believed I was, until this moment when you picked me up in your arms, and kissed my forehead, my cheek and whispered;

""It's okay, Ana, I won't leave you here alone."

_**One...life **_

And Gods, I don't have words for that..

_**One**_

Just one...

"Thankyou."

* * *

The End. 


End file.
